You better come on in my kitchen

There is a serious sigh of relief coming out of me right now. Why? Because I just finished the first final exam of the second semester of my first year of vet school. And that exam was in Parasitology. And you will never understand the sigh unless you have taken a class like this parasitology course. Whew. It's over! And next: Pharmacology! The two worst ones first - EXACTLY how I like it. Smooth sailin after Wednesday. 

To help with the stress? I do some yoga (went to class yesterday evening - a 2 minute downward dog has my shoulders feeling more tense than before, but it was well worth it) and COOK! 

In the words of Robert Johnson, "you better come on in my kitchen, cuz it's gon' to be rainin outdoors..." 

(figure of speech - it's actually GORGEOUS outside!)

This past Friday night, I invited a friend over for dinner, which turned into 3 friends, which was totally exciting and doable, and I decided to make some Vietnamese-style spring rolls. Now, normally you would use pork and/or shrimp in these guys, but, since my audience was primarily vegetarian (and I have absolutely no problem with that), we left out the meat. I looked around Tastespotting.com (my Go-to for amazing recipes) and Epicurious, just to get some feelers out, and mixed and matched a few things, coming up with These Guys:

Now, this is actually a repeat that I did yesterday, where I substituted the spinach I used Friday night for cut Romaine (just because we had used all the spinach). Here is my semblance of a recipe:

Boil some rice noodle vermicelli (according to package instructions, I suppose, although my package told me it would only take 3-5 minutes and I had to go at least 12 for mine to be right at al dente); after cooking, strain and douse with cool water, leaving to cool for the final product. 

Cut up some veggies:

• Red bell peppers

• Cucumbers

• Carrots (I actually used some that I had sitting in some dill pickle juice from previously delicious pickles cauliflower - but regular carrots will do just fine!)

• AVOCADOS! This was our meat-replacement, although I feel like avocado can never hurt, whether you have some pork/shrimp or not...

• Lettuce/spinach/etc. (we did spinach the first time, which I liked better than sliced romaine, although I think leaving the romaine in whole or half leaves would have been better; also, I want to try arugala next time!)

• Mint! Or basil! Or both! For the last little bit... (we had lemon mint in the garden, so that's what we used)

Get a pie plate/regular plate and fill it with water (some recipes say it needs to be hot/warm, mine was anywhere from cool to lukewarm, between the two tries, and all of it worked just fine!). I have not perfected this part - my pie plate was way too small, then I tried a regular plate, which was too shallow... But they both worked well enough, so, if you don't have a better solution, follow my lead, but don't expect simple perfection! 

Get your rice paper ready - have a second plate ready for wrapping rolls. Dip rice paper in water for about 15 seconds total (I had to alternate sides/sort of spread the water around, so it was a guessing game), until paper is just slightly softened (almost still papery?).  

Place the rice paper on the second plate. I would start with the lettuce/spinach/arugala, then the noodles, then the sliced veggies (+/- meat, if you wanted to add it), ending with the avocado and the mint (I used 2 full leaves of mint per roll). 

I made about 2 per person, without a lot of pre-planning, which I will work on for next time, but you get what I'm sayin...

Now, you can stop here, if you aren't looking for any sauce, or if you have just some bottled peanut sauce or hoisin. But I did not, so I stumbled upon a recipe for "Spicy Thai dipping sauce" and did what I could...

Per this recipe (with a few modifications, mostly because of availability in my fridge at that particular moment):

• (didn't have fresh ginger, so none)
• 2 cloves garlic
• Used leftover peanut butter (which was no good, since I had forgotten that one of my friends that was coming is allergic... oopsy!) + some almond butter I also had (appr. 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tbsp lime juice (I only had the bottled kind, which made me sad, but... it was necessary!)
• A splash or so of Bragg's Liquid Aminos (which is what I usually use in the place of soy sauce)
• A bit of sesame oil (I don't understand measuring these things...)
• Drizzle of agave nectar (that's more like it!)
• Drizzle of Sriracha (YES!!)

Food processed, and VOILA! Delicious!

I'm pretty excited to have this one in my repertoire, especially with the upcoming availability of most of the fresh ingredients this summer! Ahhh, I will live off of tomatoes and these fresh rolls, I cannot WAIT...

Now, I also pulled out some close-to-rotten bananas I had placed in the freezer several weeks ago, thinking that some banana-nut-bread would be a wonderful study treat... And of course, while I should have been studying parasitology this very morning, I was making some bread in my CAST-IRON SKILLET! Hah, I couldn't pass up this recipe (which I modified kind of extensively, but the skillet thing... that was the most important part):

Preheat oven to 350. 

Mix up: 

For the dry ingredients: (in smaller bowl)

• 1 1/2 cups organic white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup dark brown sugar (I just don't like granulated)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Chopped pecans (I just put as many as I liked)
• Ghiradelli chocolate chips (I just LOVE chocolate in banana nut bread!

Wet ingredients: (in bigger bowl)

• Little big less than 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup 2% yogurt (my buttermilk was bad... boo!)
• Mashed bananas (probably more like 5? but they were REALLY overripe, so they were pretty compact)
• 2 eggs (straight from the Garrison yard chickens!)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Before mixing everything together, I placed the skillet in the oven with a little pat of butter to get her ready... 

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in parts. Take out the skillet and pour the mix into the skillet. Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes (mine was a little juicy in the middle after 30, so I probably kept it in there for upwards of 45)

Ahhhh, I love finding new ways to just a cast-iron skillet! SOOO moist and delicious!

Also, SCHOOL IS OVER IN A WEEK AND A DAY!! WOOOHOOOO! ANNNNND I GET TO SEE MY GIRL JESSICA!!

Life. Is. Good.